AdWord Refund Options

[Paul_H]

During October i noticed an increase in clicks without extra sales and became suspicious . Not suspicious enough to do much about it other than to try and detect repeat visitors on badly setup anonymous proxies, just as i started to monitor activity the fraud stopped. I never contacted Google.

Seems Google were on the case and i received a refund today, they don’t give details other than it was on the content network. Pleasantly surprised

More about google click quality here https://adwords.google.com/select/faq/click...ickquality.html

[webcertain]

So did you need to send anything (logs..)?
Cheers,
Johann

[Paul_H]

The only evidence i had was an increased CTR from about 3-6% to 12%. I looked through the logs but hadn’t spotted anything conclusive. Guess this shows i need to write something to better analyse the logs.

I never contacted Google as the increased CTR returned to normal, this was a few weeks ago.

I have no idea what Google detected, could be they recently spotted something or it could be something from months ago. Email i received from Google simply said they had detected fraudulent clicks and were refunding some money.

[webcertain]

Sounds very fair and honest to me :-)
It's not always easy to monitor all datas, and as long as the action rate is not too badly touched..

[Black_Knight]

Might be a good time to take a look at ClickDetective which is a click fraud detection service.

[Paul_H]

Looks good Ammon.

Cheers

Anyone know of a similar product for offline use? have several accounts so it should work out cheaper in long run. Pus I’m not keen on other sites knowing my stats.

[Black_Knight]

I know of several companies that have such software, Paul, but none that sell it. Many companies with big enough budgets to protect decided to build their own. That decision might be appropriate to you too, if saving around 10-20 percent (depends on markets and average click costs you deal with) of your PPC spend this year is worth more than the cost of developing such a piece of software...

[Paul_H]

Think i will look at developing my own - now added to my list of 101 things to do.
If only i could survive without sleep

cheers

[webcertain]

Does this type of program make claims easier with the ppc se?
Cheers,
Johann

[Black_Knight]

There is at least one alternative, Paul - you could seek out some other companies in the same posoition and form a cooperative project to have the software built. That could split the costs considerably, and thus make it possible to come up with the budget to outsource the project to an independant developer (or developers) far sooner...

Johann, having very clear figures and a level of certainty will help in just about any situation.

[webcertain]

Amon, I meant: does it make it easier than presenting raw stats?
Cheers,
Johann

[Black_Knight]

Not really. But it does make it easier for you to spot and thus raise with Google or whoever in the first place.

[webcertain]

Thanks Ammon :-)

[gmac17]

do you spend a lot on adwords?

i ask because I wonder if they refunded you because you are a big spender, where they may not listen to a regular person...

[Web Diversity]

The amount spent shouldn't and doesn't matter.

Google are in the process of taking an Adsense publisher to court for fraudulently clicking on ads to generate income for themselves, and even this might be a scapegoat case it certainly should send out a message to Adsense publishers that Google take the whole issue of click fraud seriously.

It has to do this really because advertisers depend on the integrity of the traffic source. Without this the market wouldn't exist. Imagine the carnage at your local bank with no security guards etc..

[JJ]

Ammon....thanks for suggesting Click Detective... I recently signed up and just love it!!

A funny thing happened.... The day I implemented the code im google landing page and created the tracking URL.....I saw my CTR rate drop from an average of 6-7% down to 3-3.5%!!! I also notice the impressions have been about half of what they were prior to the Fraud implementation.....


Anyone car to share some insight ???

John

[ChrisChoi]

Awesome. I've heard Google being really generous with this a couple
of times. I really have to applaud Google for this and tracking down
those click frauds.

[gmac17]

[quote]Google are in the process of taking an Adsense publisher to court for fraudulently clicking on ads to generate income for themselves, and even this might be a scapegoat case it certainly should send out a message to Adsense publishers that Google take the whole issue of click fraud seriously.

It has to do this really because advertisers depend on the integrity of the traffic source. ..[/quote]

yeah, unfortunately Google doesn't take the issue of Click fraud seriously enough themselves imo. To them, one person clicking on your ad every day for a year is just fine. I signed up for a different fraud detection service and couldn't believe what I saw....[/quote]